Check this out: Is ‘Potential Prostitutes’ the worst website on earth?

The website allows users to label any woman a “potential prostitute” by submitting her photo, phone number and location. This information is then posted on the site without the woman’s consent. If someone wishes to be removed from the site, they are asked to pay a one-time fee of $99.95.

According to the website, Potential Prostitutes “operate[s] based on the efforts from motivated members of their local community who have at one point or another come into contact with a potential prostitute online and feel they can be a threat.” The mission statement goes on to thank “brave visitors for stepping forward to tell the world what it should already know, that exposing online prostitute discourages other potential offenders from doing the very same thing.” Yes, this website actually exists.

The FAQ section makes it clear that the founders of Potential Prostitutes — who have yet to make themselves known, Boing Boing reported — do not care whether the accusations of prostitution are libelous and state that the profiles will remain published unless someone pays to remove them.

Boing Boing also reported that the website was only registered in October 2012, and to a P.O. box in Stockholm, Sweden. This means that it’s hard to know whether the women listed are even real women or whether anyone has in fact paid the exorbitant fee to be removed. Weighing in over at The Gloss, Amanda Chatel wrote that Potential Prostitutes “seems to be less about ‘saving’ the world from sex workers and more about extorting money from the falsely accused.”

Real or not, the idea behind the site is pretty sick. Don’t women already get shamed enough for their sexual choices? And even if the women on the site were actual prostitutes, how are they “threats” to those invited to participate in this site?

4 COMMENTS

Don't be fooled, if you make a whois on this website, in the owner appears "Gottfrid Swartholm" the creator of "the pirate bay" (is in the jail right now) is just a government strategy to change the public opinion about if internet must be controlled or not..

Thinking about suing PotentialProstitutes.com? Read this first!The Law You Need To Know – The Communications Decency Act Because we will not remove reports, PotentialProstitutes.com has been sued on many occasions based on the content which our users have created and posted. If you are considering suing PotentialProstitutes.com because of a profile which you claim is defamatory, you should be aware that to date, PotentialProstitutes.com has never lost such a case. This is because of a federal law called the Communications Decency Act or "CDA", 47 U.S.C. § 230. Because this important law is not well known, we want to take a moment to explain the law, and to also explain that the filing of frivolous lawsuits can have serious consequences for those who file them, both parties and their attorneys. The CDA is part of our federal laws. An excellent Wikipedia article discussing the history of the law can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_C… short, the CDA provides that when a user writes and posts material on an “interactive website” such as PotentialProstitutes.com, the site itself cannot, be held legally responsible for the posted material. Specifically, 47 U.S.C. § 230(c)(1) states, "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider." Because the submitted profiles on PotentialProstitutes.com are authored by users of the site, we cannot be legally regarded as the "publisher or speaker" of the reports contained here, and hence we are not liable for reports even if they contain false or inaccurate information (NOTE: we occasionally create editorial comments and other material, but when we do, this is clearly marked as such). The same law applies to sites like FaceBook, MySpace, and CraigsList – users who post information on these sites are responsible for what they write, but the operators of the sites are not. The reasons for this law are simple. Websites cannot possibly monitor the accuracy of the huge volume of information which their users may choose to post. If an angry plaintiff were permitted to hold a website liable for information that the site did not create, this would stifle free speech as fewer and fewer sites would be willing to permit users to post anything at all. See generally Batzel v. Smith, 333 F.3d 1018, 1027-28 (9th Cir. 2003) (recognizing, "Making interactive computer services and their users liable for the speech of third parties would severely restrict the information available on the Internet. Section 230 [of the CDA] therefore sought to prevent lawsuits from shutting down websites and other services on the Internet.") So, why should you care about the CDA? Well, it's simple – if someone posts false information about you on the PotentialProstitutes.com, the CDA prohibits you from holding us liable for the statements which others have written. You can always sue the author if you want, but you can’t sue PotentialProstitutes.com just because we provide a forum for speech.

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